One of the great things about the internet is that things tend to stay up indefinitely. This does mean that sometimes you’ll never be rid of an embarrassing picture, but more often it means we’re free to stumble across articles and things we may have missed. We can discover these gems at a later date and share them with others!

Such is the case with this list of 22 Story Telling Tips from Pixar that I found the other day. Like any writing rules, they can be taken with a grain of salt and, as Barbossa would say it, “more what you’d call ‘guidelines.'”

Last night was my first game of Arkham Horror. I’ve known about the game for some time, but I just hadn’t rolled up my sleeves and jumped into the ichor.

The main premise is simple and enjoyable: portals to other worlds start opening up around the city, spewing forth nightmarish monsters, and it’s up to a motley band of the town’s more interesting denizens to save the day. If they can’t close the portals fast enough a horrible creature of immense power will eventually climb out for a final showdown.

I decided that I wanted my first experience of the game to be as genuine as possible so I insisted that we go full random on characters and the Ancient One we would fight (or, hopefully, not fight). I tried not to demand a redraw when my character ended up being the most middling character in the game: a twenty-something, female, college student.

Instead, I dove into the monster filled streets with gusto. I soon felt like I could personally identify with my character. We were both intensely curious about the strange goings on in Arkham, to the point of recklessness, and we were both quickly in over our heads; me with learning the myriad, fast-flying rules and her fighting a Shoggoth with her bare hands. Nevertheless, and against steep odds, we both prevailed.

Our group did a great job of sweeping nasty critters off the street, but we bungled enough gate closings that we eventually let the Ancient One through. With some luck and teamwork, we managed to prevail with the only casualty being…my own dear college student.

Fast-paced (especially once you get the rules down), dangerous, and a pleasantly eerie, Arkham Horror is a well-designed, fun-to-play game with friends. There’s enough characters to play and horrors to face, that you could play many, many games before catching even a hit of repetition. Here’s hoping I get a chance to play again soon.

This blog post in memory of my dearly departed devoured college student, Amanda Sharpe, marksman without a gun.